magazine ventured into
Evanston, Ill.-based association Rotary International to explore
its massive global initiative, PolioPlus, which aims to tackle global
polio eradication through the mass
vaccination of children. The issue’s
signature story, “Two Drops, One
Life,” by Suzi Wirtz, CAE, discussed
PolioPlus’ mission, history and suc-cesses in fighting to eradicate the
global polio crisis.

I

Rotary International launched PolioPlus in

1985 with its partners, World Health Organization, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the
United Nations Children’s Fund. Initial estimates put a $120
million price tag on seeing the initiative through, but, thanks
in large part to a committed group of volunteers and staff, the
financial goal was met on February 3, 1988.

“In 1985, our mission was to protect the world’s childrenfrom polio,” said Carol Pandak, then-manager of the PolioPlusDivision at Rotary International, in the October 2005 FORUMarticle. “Three years later, we changed the wording to ‘eradi-cate’ instead of just protect. No one was convinced we couldactually eradicate the disease entirely, until we started raisingmoney.”Since then, Rotary has contributed more than $1.5 billionand countless volunteer hours to immunize more than 2. 5billion children in 122 countries. Rotary also credits its strongsocial and political advocacy efforts in influencing decisionsby donor governments to contribute more than $9 billion. Inaddition, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation offered a two-to-one match up to $35 million per year for polio eradicationthrough 2018.

When Rotary began this initiative more than 30 years ago,
there were 350,000 confirmed cases of Polio globally. As of
2015, that number has been reduced to 60. We sat down with